Tuesday, January 10. 2012

Sekrenyi - the festival of the Angami tribe is celebrated in the month of February and falls on the 25th day of the Angami month of Kezei. It is a festival of purification with feasting and singing. Touphema, 41kms from Kohima the capital has a Tourist village, where the Sekrenyi is celebrated annually. The Tourist Village is a community run resort with 12 traditional thatched houses with modern amenities. Local people provide meals, a cultural display and dancing with traditional locally brewed rice beer. There is a village museum and guided tours around the village.

25th Feb in Kohima. Also at Touphema around the same time as well as at Khonoma.

Wikipedia has this to say about Sekrenyi

The Angamis celebrate a ten-day festival called Sekrenyi (sometimes also called Phousanyi) in the month of February. The term Sekrenyi literally means sanctification festival (sekre = sanctification; nyi = feast; thenyi = festival). The festival takes places after the harvest and falls on the twenty-fifth day of the Angami month Kezei (January–February)

The festival follows a circle of ritual and ceremony, the first being kizie. A few drops of rice water taken from the top of a type of jug called zumho and are put on leaves. These are then placed at the three main posts of the house by the lady of the household. On the first day, all the young and old go to the village well to bathe.

In the night, two young men clean the well. Some of the village youth guard the well, as no one is allowed to fetch water after the cleaning. As women are especially not allowed to touch the well water at this time, they must make sure that water is fetched for the household before then. Early the next morning, all the young men of the village attend the washing ritual. The young men wear two new shawls (the white Mhoushü and the black Lohe) and sprinkle water on their chests, knees, and right arms. This ceremony is called dzüseva (touching the sleeping water); in it, the well water symbolically washes away all their ills and misfortunes.

On their return from the well, a rooster is sacrificed. It is taken as a good omen when the right leg falls over the left leg as it falls down. The innards of the rooster are then hung outside the house for the village elders to inspect. A three-day session of singing and feasting starts on the fourth day of the festival.

The most interesting part of the Sekrenyi Festival is the thekra hie. The thekra hie is a part of the festival when the young people of the village sit together and sing traditional songs throughout the day. Jugs of rice beer and plates of meat are placed before the participants. On the seventh day, the young men go hunting. The most important ceremony falls on the eighth day when the bridge-pulling, or gate-pulling, is performed and inter-village visits are exchanged. All field work ceases during this season of feasting and song.